Click Here To Purchase From Amazon An Embarrassment of Riches (A novel)

Author: Gerald Hansen

ISBN: 978-0-595-44759-6

Publisher: iUniverse

Gerald Hansen lived in Derry, his mother’s hometown. He attended Dublin City University and as a Navy brat, grew up in California, Thailand, London, Iceland and Germany. He now works as a ESL teacher in New York with a photo album full of Derry snapshots.

Fionnuala Flood’s life is falling to pieces. She slaves for hours on end scrubbing the filthy toilets in Derry and also works double time at Sav-U-Mor. All of this she does for her seven children, all of them terribly ungrateful for her hard work.

Her daughter, an eight-year-old, surely is the off-spring of Satan. She is like the devil himself, Finonnuala thinks. And as for her son…well he is a convict.

Being married to a boozer who packs fish for a living, is just the last straw.

It just seems that nothing ever goes right for her, always someone else.

And how right she is. Her sister-in-law, Ursula Barnett, has a rich Yank husband who is always on her arm.

They arrive back in her hometown of Derry to set up life. Then out-of-the-blue, Ursula wins 500,000 on the Irish lottery and revels in her delight. Fionnuala is furious, why should she win anything when all she does is spend all her husband’s cash?

So begins a fight for money between the two sisters, who drag everyone into it.

Greedy Fionnuala wants to show Ursula up in front of everyone so they will turn against her. And you never know, she might just get lucky and scoop the money from under her nose…or bag as it were.

This is indeed a family saga with a good dose of black humour. A love story too and also as the book says, a courtroom drama.

Many parts of this book are absolutely hilarious, especially the episodes in the courtrooms. Yet I found the dialogue put me off a little, with Hansen’s obsessive use of the Derry accent. Even though there is a helpful Derry-speak Dictionary included, I still found myself stumbling over the dialogue. Such a shame, I thought because it really did spoil a good read for me.

Don’t let this put you off though, the storyline is addictive and the characters are so interesting with moments of laugh-out-loud.  It is fast-moving and never leaves the reader veering off to boredom. Even if you don’t tend to go for this type of thing, I can guarantee lots of laughs.

A book that is bound to be a hit with most.

Click Image Below To Find Out More About This Book (Note: May not work with all browsers)